Personally I felt frustration. But given the chance to sleep on it (much as the sloths do), my frustration has turned to cautious optimism, as I’ve re-examined the events and the response to see what lessons could be taken forward.

The vision I have of an endangered species being crated up and moved towards a private jet for export before being intercepted by local conservation activists is particularly unsavoury for two reasons:

First, conservation is, at its heart, about people. Most extinctions today are caused by human activity, and so we have to accept that we, by and large, are the problem.

This knowledge actually puts us in a very powerful position. If we can understand our damaging behaviours, then we, as the perpetrators of those behaviours, have the power to save many endangered species from extinction. But to do that we need to communicate with each other in order to understand those behaviours and the motivations behind them.

If we want to save the world’s wonderful and endangered species from extinction, then we have to communicate that vision with transparency and be willing to hear all sides of the argument. Differences of opinion, such as those relating to how best to conserve the pygmy three-toed sloth, are to be expected. But these can only be resolved if we have open discussion. So for me the foundation of good conservation is effective communication.

Second, conservation is complex. It incorporates all of the world’s social and natural complexity and dynamism and for any situation we witness multiple drivers of biodiversity loss in action. There are plenty of different challenges that need our attention, and a desperate need for collaboration and what we term ‘joined up thinking’ and coordination to design conservation strategies that work together to meet this complexity. That’s why any conservation intervention that acts in isolation is a risky thing and can undermine other efforts if not properly integrated.

Estimates for the rate of species extinctions range, but a conservative estimate might be 10,000 species a year, which equates to just over one species lost every hour. Clearly, there is plenty of work to be done. There should be no need for infighting, but a need for collaboration in this enormous and noble task of conservation that we are undertaking.

When these basic building blocks of communication and collaboration are in place, we do see great successes. The International Gorilla Conservation Programme is a collaboration of three international organisations working with local groups, across three countries with combined efforts leading to an increase in mountain gorilla numbers since the programme began.

Back in Panama, the conservation champions of the pygmy three-toed sloth have been working hard since the events of September 9 and have now formed a pygmy sloth conservation committee. So despite the recent controversy, efforts to conserve this Critically Endangered species continue undaunted.

As a final thought, I think it’s worth remembering that we live life in real-time, with imperfect knowledge of any situation. Unfortunate events are bound to happen and we must meet them as best we can; and have a duty to learn what we can along the way. If we adopt this open minded approach, we can look forward to facing – and overcoming – the unknown challenges on the horizon.

]]>http://www.fauna-flora.org/no-room-for-slothfulness-communication-and-collaboration-are-key-to-successful-conservation/feed/0Standing up for snakeshttp://www.fauna-flora.org/standing-up-for-snakes/
http://www.fauna-flora.org/standing-up-for-snakes/#commentsWed, 25 Sep 2013 22:51:05 +0000http://www.fauna-flora.org/?p=4866Ever since Genesis snakes have had a bad reputation. Even before that was written, the ancient Egyptians had snakebite remedies, and Cleopatra, so the story goes, committed suicide by serpent.

Snakes hold a deep fascination for people for both their perceived danger and strange beauty. The inexplicable and seemingly magical way in which a snake moves, and those inscrutable lidless eyes, have given them a status as something beyond a mere animal. They have entered the realm of myth in many cultures; symbols for fertility, virility, or the umbilicus that connects humans to the Earth.

The Biblical serpent deceiver of Genesis becomes the apotheosis of evil in Revelations – a limbless scaled Satan. For latter day scholars of the human condition they were equally important. Freud saw the snake as representing the sexual drive; while for Jung the snake in dreams personified the conflict between the conscious mind and the instinct. But he also saw the snake as symbolic of the great wisdom of nature. For most people on the planet, snakes are simply something to be avoided.

A common species around villages, the sunbeam snake is beautiful and harmless. Nevertheless, it is usually killed on sight when found by villagers. Credit: Jeremy Holden/FFI

It is true that snakes can be deadly. About 15% of known snake species are venomous, or at least venomous enough to produce effects in humans. The World Health Organization quotes a figure of 95,000 to 120,000 deaths, 400,000 amputations or other serious health factors per year due to snake envenomation. These occur mostly in rural communities, and help to explain why snakes are usually killed on sight, regardless of the potential danger.

But those of us that know snakes more intimately realise that the bad rap is often an unfair one. Part of my job photographing wildlife involves finding and sometimes catching snakes. In Sumatra, for instance, there are some 140 species recognised. They are found everywhere. We had one in the kitchen cupboard once, and I have seen them sliding silently around the house on occasion. But for the most part snakes are secretive. They come into contact with people only by accident. Most snake bites occur when a barefooted villager treads on a krait along a path, disturbs a wood pile in which a cobra is resting, or fails to spot a camouflaged green viper in a bush he is cutting.

A well-camouflaged pit viper can be difficult to spot. Credit: Jeremy Holden/FFI

As part of the biodiversity of a place, snakes are something I seek out. In the tropics, despite the diversity of species – and the probable high density of individuals – snakes can be very difficult to find. Their cryptic colouration makes them hard to spot, and they quickly vanish if they sense they are being approached. Plus, most of them are strictly nocturnal. Nevertheless, I feel lucky to find even one snake on a night’s search. I can also vouch for the general good temper of most snake species (not all – I have been bitten numerous times by the spindly but pugnacious vine snake) and how much provocation it takes to make most snake species disturbed enough to be aggressive.

One reason I feel obliged to stick up for snakes is that things could have worked out very differently for me were snakes as malign as people fear. One evening in Sumatra I was walking back through the forest after spending 11 hours in a hide trying to photograph birds. I was tired and not paying attention so didn’t notice a king cobra stretched across the narrow track. The king cobra is the world’s largest venomous snake. As venom goes it is not the most potent, but the sheer volume of venom injected means that a bite from this snake results in death for anyone unlucky enough to be bitten. I didn’t notice the snake (a relatively small one at about 3 metres long) until I was mid-stride over it. The snake saw me at the same time I saw it, and made to rise up into its usual threat pose. However, as I was already straddling the snake, it hit my leg and curled round my thigh like a living example of the Rod of Asclepius. At this point I realised I was in contact with a king cobra. It happened quickly: the snake reared up and butted me in the stomach. It was definitely a head butt, not a strike.

At the time I thought that this was a consequence of my forward momentum and the snake’s upward movement. The cobra had vanished by the time I hit the ground. I considered myself very lucky. It was only years later that I learned that king cobras will head butt instead of bite if they sense that it is an accidental encounter. They are, after all, credited as being the most intelligent of snakes and have no desire to waste their precious venom on something that they don’t intend to eat.

I always think of that snake when I see king cobras curled dead in jars of rice wine (a common sight in Vietnam). The cobra had the wit to realise I was not a threat, just a bumbling passerby. And yet, most human/snake encounters end up quite differently for the unfortunate snake, even the harmless rat snakes that helped clear our Sumatran kitchen of rodents. Could it be that the king cobra is in fact, if not more intelligent, then more compassionate than the average human being?

One of the reasons I was initially attracted to FFI is that it is the kind of conservation organisation that also recognises the importance of the smaller and more maligned creatures, such as snakes. I doubt that it is easy to raise money for snake conservation, but yet FFI’s project with the Antiguan racer in the Caribbean has brought this endangered reptile back from the brink. That success has lead to a new initiative to work the same magic on the island of Saint Lucia for the Saint Lucia racer – perhaps the rarest snake on the planet – and the diminutive Saint Lucia thread snake – the second smallest snake on Earth at only 108mm. Later this year a new FFI initiative will focus on the Endangered Anguilla Bank racer starting with a status assessment in Anguilla.

The Antiguan racer population has gone from 50 to over 1,000 individuals after concerted conservation work by FFI. Credit: Jenny Daltry/FFI

We have also supported a status assessment of the king cobra in India and Thailand, while the FFI Philippines programme helped protect the endemic Lake Taal sea snake.

In Southeast Asia, FFI’s Cambodia programme is making a habit of finding species of snake that are new to science. Survey work in the Cardamom Mountains has revealed a number of new snakes. On our first survey there in 2000 Dr Jenny Daltry discovered what was later named the Cardamom wolf snake; while last year our herpetologist Neang Thy discovered a striking new species of kukri snake, which he named in honour of his country. Currently, Thy is working on the descriptions of another two new species, and will probably go on to find many more before the Cardamoms are fully explored.

The Cambodian kukri snake is the latest new species to be described by herpetologist Neang Thy. Credit: Neang Thy/Ministry of Environment/FFI.

Perhaps the majority of people consider snakes as the enemy: dangerous, evil, loathsome even. But I cannot agree. As a life form, I consider snakes as having reached perfection; and like most manifestations of perfection they are simple and waste nothing. The snake stitches together the ecosystem like a thread through cloth: unobtrusive, beautiful, and effective: a symbol of the wisdom of nature indeed.

]]>http://www.fauna-flora.org/standing-up-for-snakes/feed/0The chronicles of Oryx: a history of conservation – part four (1934-1943)http://www.fauna-flora.org/the-chronicles-of-oryx-a-history-of-conservation-1934-1943/
http://www.fauna-flora.org/the-chronicles-of-oryx-a-history-of-conservation-1934-1943/#commentsTue, 07 May 2013 18:35:55 +0000http://www.fauna-flora.org/?p=4419In FFI’s fourth decade, the pages of its journal (which at that time was still known, rather grandly, as the Journal of the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire) provide amazing insight into the events that were unfolding with the journal itself, the Society and the wider world in general.

Between 1934 and 1943 a number of features were introduced to the journal that are still present, in some form, in Oryx today. Conservation Notes, for example, is an early forerunner of the Conservation News and Briefly sections, although the focus now is global and ranges across animals, plants and international conservation issues. In the most recent issue of Oryx, for example, articles in the Briefly section covered topics from the monogamy of hawksbill turtles in the Seychelles to vampire bats nibbling the feet of penguin chicks in Peru’s Atacama Desert.

Another section that became a regular feature in the journal at this time was the book review section – one of my favourite sections in Oryx. Placed, as it is, at the end of the journal, it feels less formal than preceding parts of the journal. Where else, but in this section, could you find a quotation from The Matrix nestling up to a sentence from Shakespeare’s The Tempest?

The tone and subject of the articles published in the journal seems to have evolved during this decade. There are more articles looking at conservation in general, such as Wild Life Conservation (published in 1934) and The Conservation of Wildlife: Retrospect and Prospect (1937). There is also an increase in the number of articles being published about conservation in the UK – from discussions about the status of the polecat and pine marten in Britain in 1936 to some notes on British bats in 1943.

Despite ending on a myth-busting note (“Finally, bats do not fly into women’s hair”), the latter article doesn’t entirely dispel the air of mystery surrounding these denizens of the night; in particular the sentence describing the sound of the serotine bat is, to my mind, somewhat disturbing: “The only sound I have heard on the wing has been a high-pitched squeak of the sort dolls used to give in pre-Great War days.”

The aptly-named long-eared bat, taken from an article published in 1943.

A royal connection

In 1936, the Society received something of a prestige boost when The Prince of Wales (who had been patron of the Society since 1929) consented to remain in this role following his accession to the throne. We have been fortunate that every British monarch since then has consented to be the patron.

Interestingly, the issues of the Journal from 1936 make no reference to what must have been a notable event at the time: namely the abdication of Edward VIII after only a few months on the throne. Instead the journal merely published an announcement by the Executive Committee in 1937, stating that: “H.M. King George VI has been graciously pleased to grant his Patronage to the Society.”

Troubled times

The outbreak of the Second World War, however, made far more of an impact in the journal’s pages. Discussing plans for the next ‘International Fauna Conference’ in 1939, for example, the journal editor had this to say:

“Unfortunately every engagement in these troubled times must be regarded as provisional. The war clouds are still heavy and it would be foolish to be blind to the possibility that the assembly of this Conference, designed to further the conservation of Nature’s treasures for the benefit of future generations of mankind, may be prevented by a cataclysm of destruction, from which all mankind would suffer from generation to generation.

“But it would be equally foolish to let such fears and doubts deter us from planning good work. Nor should we lose our faith that such conferences as these, where men of many nations meet with the common aim of securing the common good, help to promote good feeling and sane relations between race and race.”

Keep calm and carry on, in other words.

Standing the test of time

One of the most striking items to feature in the journal during this decade is the mention of the Nigerian Field Society. This organisation features in a 1934 article about wildlife preservation in the northern provinces, in which it is credited (in part) with increasing the level of interest in conservation in Nigeria.

Established in 1930, the Nigerian Field Society has published its journal The Nigerian Field since 1931, making it one of the country’s oldest continuous publications. While The Nigerian Field has more of a regional focus than Oryx, both of these long-running journals provide space for researchers and conservationists to disseminate their findings.

Conservation journals like these are crucial repositories for knowledge, in which being published is just the start for an article. It might end up being used to inform policy or conservation practice, or contributing to the wealth of information on a particular species or habitat.

It may even end up being revisited, decades later, to provide insights into the historical context of a conservation issue.

Part five in this series (1944-1953) will be published at the end of May 2013. To browse through all material relating to FFI’s 110th Anniversary, visit our dedicated page.

]]>http://www.fauna-flora.org/the-chronicles-of-oryx-a-history-of-conservation-1934-1943/feed/0The chronicles of Oryx: a history of conservation – part three (1924-1933)http://www.fauna-flora.org/the-chronicles-of-oryx-a-history-of-conservation-1924-1933/
http://www.fauna-flora.org/the-chronicles-of-oryx-a-history-of-conservation-1924-1933/#commentsThu, 28 Mar 2013 15:23:28 +0000http://www.fauna-flora.org/?p=4273In its third decade, the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire (as Fauna & Flora International was known at that time) underwent changes in the way it functioned, some of which relate to issues that are still pertinent today.

Chief among the Society’s developments between 1924 and 1933 was an increased emphasis on membership recruitment. In 1924 the membership stood at 48 honorary and 179 ordinary members, but by the end of the decade this had increased to 56 honorary, 86 life and 802 ordinary members.

Furthermore, the officers running the Society appeared far more aware of the value of membership as a measure of the organisation’s development, as the below diagram (published in the 1930 issue of the journal) shows.

Diagram showing membership growth, taken from the 1930 issue of the society's journal.

Exhortations to secure more members featured in the journal’s pages, including the use of social networks: “If each of our members could bring in just one recruit, our ideal would become a fact.”

Alongside membership, the journal itself also grew. Seen as “the main method of advising the public as to our activities,” three issues of the journal were published per year from 1930 onwards, instead of just one. As early as 1925, the scope of material that the journal would consider publishing was highlighted, as follows:

Call for articles, taken from an editorial notice in the 1925 issue of the journal.

Resonating through time

The Society itself also developed its own objectives, which were likewise published in the journal, during this decade. Again, these bear little resemblance to FFI’s current aim and mission; however, some elements of these objectives could be seen as forerunners to the way in which FFI operates today.

Most significantly, the objectives stipulate that “It is no part of the aim of the Society to preserve animal life at the expense of human industry or natural development.” This suggests an awareness of the complexities inherent in the relationship between conservation and people, and the importance of striving for a balance between interests.

Some articles published in the journal during these 10 years also resonate with FFI’s modern conservation work. A 1924 article entitled ‘The Australian Fauna’, for example, emphasises the importance of working with people to change attitudes towards conservation:

“Only education, and getting the people to love and value the birds and animals, can overcome this [that the average person is rather more inclined to destroy than to admire the wild things around him]. Hence we have one day every year, known as Bird Day, on which the subject has special mention in the primary schools. Many of the school children are moreover members of the Gould League of Bird Lovers.”

FFI’s turtle conservation work in Nicaragua (profiled in this short video by IUCN) is a great example of how real conservation successes can arise from helping people appreciate the beauty and wonder of nature.

The relationship between people and wild places is further explored in other articles published during this decade. An article from 1927, for instance, describes the proposed creation of a transboundary national park in the Tatra Mountains, located on the border of Poland and modern-day Slovakia. A significant aspect of this article is the description of how the park will be managed:

“In the higher altitudes, conservation will be absolute and access will only be permitted to the authorities, keepers and authorised guides and tourists. In the lower altitudes conservation will be partial and a certain amount of exploitation of timber, etc., will be permitted.”

The park didn’t gain protection until the 1940s, but is now designated as a Biosphere Reserve under UNESCO’s Man and Biosphere Programme. This is particularly fitting as Biosphere Reserves are described by UNESCO as, “Places that seek to reconcile conservation of biological and cultural diversity and economic and social development through partnerships between people and nature.”

“Strange, unearthly shrieks”

This article, it seems to me, contains many elements that make it special. The opening paragraph describes the discovery of a strange bird outside someone’s door following a storm, and the subsequent invitation to a keen naturalist to come and inspect it. Following what sounds like much debate, and the examination of records and preserved skins, the bird is pronounced to be a female diablotin, or black-capped petrel. The local name of the bird means little devil, and it is so named because – like other members of the petrel family – the species is nocturnal at its breeding sites, and emits strange, unearthly shrieks.

Although this story ends unhappily for this particular diablotin, a footnote in the article explains that the species became protected by a Special Legislative Order two months after her discovery.

To me, this showcases what we still strive to achieve in articles published in Oryx today – a good story, with facts couched in evidence, but, most importantly, a lasting outcome for conservation.

Part four in this series (1934-1943) will be published at the end of April 2013. To browse through all material relating to FFI’s 110th Anniversary, visit our dedicated page.

]]>http://www.fauna-flora.org/the-chronicles-of-oryx-a-history-of-conservation-1924-1933/feed/0The chronicles of Oryx: a history of conservation – part two (1914-1923)http://www.fauna-flora.org/the-chronicles-of-oryx-a-history-of-conservation-1914-1923/
http://www.fauna-flora.org/the-chronicles-of-oryx-a-history-of-conservation-1914-1923/#commentsThu, 28 Feb 2013 18:20:51 +0000http://www.fauna-flora.org/?p=4173The years between 1914 and 1923 were quiet ones for the journal of the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire, with nothing published between 1914 and 1921. One imagines that events in Europe occupied the minds of the Society’s members, particularly given the number of members with military connections.

The fate of the forest during the First World War mirrors the wider changes in this part of Europe at the start of the 20th century: In 1914 the forest belonged to Russia, but was occupied by German troops for a year and a half during the war, and subsequently – having “changed hands two or three times” – finally became part of Poland.

Count Bobrinskoy’s letter outlines his concern that the bison population was declining as a consequence of overhunting by both the German troops and local people. The Society agreed to send a letter to the Polish authorities to outline the importance of protecting this species. Today, the forest is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, replete with a sizeable bison population.

This consideration of the effects of war on a country’s wildlife and wild places is particularly interesting given FFI’s subsequent work in post-conflict areas, including Liberia, Aceh and Cambodia.

Shifting away from sport hunting

As seen in the first years of the journal’s existence, the issue of sport hunting continued to be a source of interest in the following decade. Interestingly though, an article by Abel Chapman published in 1922 about the white rhinoceros in Sudan, sounds a note of a more esoteric nature.

An extract from Chapman's article on white rhino, published in 1922.

Despite his apparent disdain for the species (describing the northern white rhino as “incredibly stupid in character”), the author regards the prospect of its extinction as a cause for concern.

Chapman berates the “barbarous and dishonouring record” that saw the rapid disappearance of a species previously “so abundant over the whole sub-continent that some [pioneers] seem to have shot them wholesale, as we go out to shoot rabbits.”

Looking outside Africa

Interest in conservation issues beyond Africa, the cradle of the Society’s origin, is scattered throughout the volumes published in this decade.

Graham Renshaw’s article on the extinct Réunion starling, in the 1922 volume, tells the story of a species that, like the white rhino, had been abundant in the not too distant past. The starling, native to the island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, also apparently shared a similar trait with the white rhino, being described as “so stupid that it could easily be knocked down with a stick.”

A sketch of the Réunion starling, from Renshaw’s 1922 article.

Renshaw’s article opens with a statement about the uniqueness of island species, and the frequency with which these species go extinct.

This issue – of the extirpation of island endemics – remains the focus of much conservation work. In the case of the Réunion starling the cause of their extinction was, as Renshaw put it, “an ornithological mystery,” although he suspected that competition with an introduced species (myna birds) or overharvesting may have played a role.

Apportioning blame to the myna sounds plausible: this species is one of only three bird species to have made it onto the list of the 100 most invasive species, as drawn up by the Global Invasive Species Database.

In other instances, the reasons for the decline in island endemics are known before they go extinct, providing conservationists with the opportunity to intervene before it is too late.

Oryx (as FFI’s journal is known today) is one channel used by researchers to publicise their findings regarding species endemic to islands, often in the hope of supporting the work of practitioners to protect such species. Thus in 1991, a paper in Oryx raised the alarm about West Indian racers in the Western Antilles.

One of these snakes, the Critically Endangered Antiguan racer, became the focus of an FFI conservation project. Thanks to the eradication of invasive rats and mongooses from the islands on which it occurs, the racer has avoided the fate of the Réunion starling, and today numbers nearly 900.

Part three in this series (1924-1933) will be published at the end of March 2013. To browse through all material relating to FFI’s 110th Anniversary, visit our dedicated page.

]]>http://www.fauna-flora.org/the-chronicles-of-oryx-a-history-of-conservation-1914-1923/feed/0The chronicles of Oryx: a history of conservation – part one (1903-1913)http://www.fauna-flora.org/the-chronicles-of-oryx-a-history-of-conservation-1903-1913/
http://www.fauna-flora.org/the-chronicles-of-oryx-a-history-of-conservation-1903-1913/#commentsFri, 01 Feb 2013 10:53:28 +0000http://www.fauna-flora.org/?p=4094There’s a certain symmetry to be found when comparing the origins of Fauna & Flora International (FFI) in 1903 and the organisation’s conservation work in 2013, because at either end of this 110-year span lies conservation in Sudan.

Today, FFI works alongside the government of the world’s newest country, the Republic of South Sudan, to support the development of conservation in the country, but it was another proposed boundary change within Sudan that spurred FFI’s founders into action.

In 1903, a group of naturalists in Britain were alarmed to hear of plans to discard an excellent game reserve to the north of the Sobat River and substitute it with an inferior area to the south. As revealed in one of the first issues of FFI’s journal (then called The Journal of the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire), the group believed the proposal posed grave risks to the game in the area.

An article on FFI's origins, from one of the first issues of its journal.

In a letter to the British Consul General in Egypt and the Governor General of Sudan, the group expressed their concerns that “if this change is made…in our opinion the disappearance of the game would be only a question of time.”

Furthermore they added that the remoteness and inaccessibility of the new area would make it hard to monitor, “thus the constitution of such an area as a reserve would be merely nominal, and would have no effect, one way or the other, on the preservation of the game.”

The upshot of their lobbying was not only the abandonment of the plans to fragment the reserve, but an increase in its protection. Buoyed by this success, the group decided that, “it seems desirable that those who have taken an interest in the matter should continue to act together.”

Following a meeting held on 11 December 1903 at the Natural History Museum in London, The Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire was born, aiming “to further the formation of game reserves or sanctuaries, the selection of the most suitable places, and the enforcing of suitable game laws and regulations.”

The cost of joining the Society in 1903 was 10 shillings per annum, specifically to cover the cost of printing. So, what did members of the Society get for their annual payment?

The early issues of the Society’s journal provided its subscribers with a strong dose of utilitarianism as the rationale for protecting species. The relationship between a particular species and animals hunted as game by sportsmen played a significant role in the perception of the species in question. Thus, the African wild dog (now one of the focal species of FFI’s work in Mozambique) is described as exercising a wasteful method of hunting, comparing unfavourably with lions and leopards, which “use every precaution to prevent the meat becoming the property of the professional scavengers of the forest.”

African wild dog.

Current conservation practice has moved far beyond this anthropomorphic view: in some cases these ‘professional scavengers’, themselves now threatened with extinction, are the subject of direct conservation initiatives.

Readers of the Society’s journal were also treated to some fairly sensational stories, such as H. Walbeeter’s article from 1904 called ‘In the lion’s jaws’. Mr Walbeeter’s story, in which he fights off a lion using his sheath-knife, is a far cry from the articles published in FFI’s current journal, Oryx—The International Journal of Conservation, although conflict between people and wildlife, particularly carnivores, still features frequently in Oryx’s pages.

Mr Walbeeter recounts his tale.

In 2009, for example, Oryx published a review of human–carnivore conflict between 1979 and 2007, in which the authors state that “the majority of attacks on people occur when they venture into felid habitat,” which is presumably what Mr Walbeeter was doing when he was attacked in 1904.

A subsequent article in the 1904 issue mentions that game regulations brought in at the start of the 20th century were proving successful in protecting elephants in Uganda, but that the elephant population was starting to damage crops – a story that still resonates with conservation practitioners today.

These first issues of the Society’s journal paint a picture of a vanished world, with early member lists for the Society recalling an age of gentlemen’s clubs (Brooks’s Club seems to have been the FFI members’ club of choice, although White’s was also popular).

However, links between modern conservation and that of this bygone age extend beyond Sudan. The spirit of collaboration – first seen in the formation of a group of people determined to protect wildlife in African reserves – still courses through FFI’s arteries.

More broadly still, the continuing emphasis on partnership drives FFI’s conservation work today, enabling the organisation to support effective conservation wherever it works, including in the nascent country of South Sudan.

Part two in this series (1914-1923) will be published at the end of February 2013. To browse through all material relating to FFI’s 110th Anniversary, visit our dedicated page.